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Electrical Wiring

arc fault circuit keeps tripping

9 years ago

I've been following this site for a while now (anonymously) and now have an issue that I think you kind folks may be able to help on! I have searched the available responses and have found nothing that specifically answers my needs. Sorry if this is somehow a duplicate.

I have a circuit in my home that all of a sudden started tripping. The house is about 10 years old and using modern AFCI breakers for required spaces.
It's a 2nd floor arc fault circuit, with (1) duplex outlet and (1) closet light switch on the master and (3) duplex outlets with a switch to a hot outlet and a ceiling fan/light combo in the other bedroom.

The circuit was working in the morning, when I used my closet light and my daughter used her bedroom lights. But around 2pm I went to the closet again and the lights didn't turn on. I figured bulb burned out but then when I saw it was 2 bulbs I thought something else was up.
I went to check the breaker and the afci breaker was tripped. I tried to shut off and back on again, but it was already "off" and when i pushed it "on" again it immediately pushed back off. I swapped that AFCI outlet for a standard (same wattage) breaker, and when i tried to turn it on it sparked and hummed for a second then shut back off. So, thoughts is it's not the breaker that's faulty...

I am slightly familiar with electrical, so I started testing.

I swapped out the breaker and it worked just the same, so it doesn't look like a breaker problem.

I did a continuity test using a multi-meter on everything i could find on the circuit and everything sounded good - good connection -- including switches, outlets, and fixtures.

I can't find anything wrong. What is going on? If you have questions, please ask. I tried to cover all the bases (like "are the grounds connected?") before asking the community, but then again i'm no pro like some of you folks!!!

If nothing else, it's feeding my daughter's room so I need to feed her gadgets or i'll loose my mind!!!

Thanks!

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Comments (2)

Ron Natalie
9 years ago
Stop screwing around and call an electrician. You've proven it's not the breakers, stop reseting the thing over and over unless you want a fire.

You have a fault in the wiring. A ungrounded conductor (hot) is touching the grounded or grounding conductor somewhere. If a visual inspection doesn't find it, you'll have to do a divide and conquer by disconnecting parts of the circuits progressively to identify where the fault is.
jdavis34
Original Author
9 years ago
Thanks @Ronnatalie. I'm not screwing around and constantly flipping the breaker, but thanks for the concern.

Update: I did some more tests and thought i isolated the short at the outlet which I think is first on the circuit. I replaced the outlet and tried and the breaker stayed on. But then all of a sudden when I was putting things back together (stuffing boxes and replacing cover plates), the circuit tripped again. I figured I must have a wire exposed and grounding or something but after re-disassembling everything I saw no issues and the breaker still wouldn't stay on. So I gave up.
I think i'm just going to call an electrician, but I wanted to see if anyone has any last minute thoughts based on the recent experience...
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